1d ago

Amazing

41 comments

I do not understand these people who have convinced themselves that they need a search engine that pretends to think
- It's not a search engine either
  
  No, but the statistical model is at least better at that than pretending to think
  
  Hardly, since if it isn't just running a search in the background it's outputting something statistically similar to a search output, which is just as likely to be false as true. And if it's running a search what was the point instead of just searching?
  
  It does search the internet now, so it kind of is.
  
  It's a search engine the same way asking a friend to google something is a search engine
  
  Yes, it's very stupid that anyone thinks they need this.
- As a USian we've been outsourcing our thinking for years. I actually find myself enjoying conversations with batshit conspiracy theorists sometimes as many people don't think about their assumptions in any capacity and would outsource their assumptions too if they had a chance to. Many don't like having to think in any capacity.
  
  I think this is part of the appeal of conspiracy theories in the US. These people are thinking completely incorrect things, but they are thinking. A conspiracy theory actually does involve the brain at some point, whereas so much of everyday life in the US seems to heavily discourage actually thinking or considering anything, everything is about consumption, not creation, including creation of thoughts and ideas.
  
  Why think when I can be mad?
- Honestly I'm coming at this from specifically a mid-european-city-carbrain standpoint and I understand it entirely. I know I'm the guy with the hammer to whom everything looks like a nail but I still argue it is the exact same process of not ever considering how this surface level choice of convenience makes you both entirely beholden to like 3 large multinational corporations and also gives you the kind of brainworms that when that is taken away you think your life is over
- In the US at least, we live in a society built on convenience. Anything that can reduce any amount of workload is marketable. This is the culture that greenlit Juicero to have a robot squeeze juice from a bag.
  Even if it's easier to do something yourself, many people will let a machine do it for them on principle.
  
  In my last department, we sold peeled mandarins (Halos). You got maybe 3-4 mandarins for 3.49. Or you can buy a 3lb bag for like 8 and peel them yourself.
  I had a customer bring me a watermelon off the sales floor and ask me to cut it. I threw it on my scale, subtracted 20% (pulled out of my ass) for the rind, and told her I could have it done in about a minute and a half, but I'd have to charge her like $60. Or she could pay the 10.99 and spend 10 minutes doing it herself. She did take my advice, to her credit.
  The amount we will pay for convenience is ridiculous. But also after work I'm exhausted, and am far far too often guilty of buying a frozen pizza or takeout, when I should spend like $15, cook, and feed myself for a few days.
  
  (cw meat) My grocery store sells chicken quarters for $1/lb... or you can buy drumsticks or thighs for $2/lb, or the mixed bag from Tyson which is about $3/lb. I genuinely don't understand how anything except the big bag has any sales at all.

41 comments